The prior art has provided at least two basic types of capacitors utilizing electrodes. One basic form was of the paste type, and the other was a rigid or welded type in the form of a ceramic like rigid structure. Both of these prior art types have suffered from certain problems associated with providing large capacitance for large capacitors and also problems associated with their use in the field or operating environments.
Some of the problems associated with the paste type electrodes have been the fact that the paste of the electrode itself creates significant problems in terms of the paste oozing through the capacitor seals. In some prior art, paste capacitors, special rings have been created to hermetically seal the capacitor and to prevent the paste electrodes from loosing their shape or oozing the paste out of the electrode thereby causing the electrode to fail.
The hard electrode type prior art capacitors, while not having the problem associated with those of the paste electrodes, have the additional problems of providing good contact between the collector plate and the electrodes. Many of the prior art patents dealt with providing a perfectly smooth hard surface for the combining of the collector to the electrode. Further these hard electrodes tend to be more brittle and subject to being more easily damaged in their field environment. Once these hard electrodes crack, they are lost from use.
Prior art patents such as U.S. Pat. No. 3,536,963, issued to Boos, et al, having a paste electrode is an example of some of the type electrodes utilizing the ring or gasket function 14 of holding the paste inside the electrode and giving the electrode shape.
Further from U.S. Pat. No. 3,288,641 issued to Rightmire, it can be seen that there would be many manufacturing problems associated with the formation of these electrodes. For example, such problems as achieving a mass-atomic layer of thinness in the electrodes. Yet another problem was contact both between the collector plates and the ion conductor and electronic separator of this invention. Also the problems associated with creating a perfect contact between all of the components without gaps which have an effect on performance and capacity of the invention made the manufacture of these capacitors very expensive.
Further prior art patents such as U.S. Pat. No. 3,634,736 issued to Boos also attempted to utilize rigid gaskets, as in gasket 15, to confine the electrodes 13 and 14 and prevent the mass of electrode material from seeping out during its operating life.
It has also been a problem in the prior art that in the attempt to compress the collector plates and the ion separator membrane against the electrodes, that the gasket seal utilized in the paste electrodes serves as an interference point when the capacitors are compressed. If the compression occurs when the capacitors are stacked one on top of the other, the compression can not go beyond the thickness of the gasket ring itself without causing the gasket itself to fail, thereby limiting the ability to achieve the full interfacing of the collector plate, ion conductor with the electrodes if compression is used in a stacked configuration.